Participate in Ephraim's version of Chapters 9 - 14 (15 and 16 are also influenced, although not entirely different chapters)

No utilizing skirmishes, the Tower of Valni, the Lagdou Ruins, or the Pierce / Silencer skills on bosses

2. Do the above in the lowest overall turncount possible (or at least the lowest I can achieve).

3. Beat the game with the lowest in-game time I can achieve (I'm definitely not optimal in this respect, since I don't use the L button very often, but otherwise I think I go fast enough).

Other general tidbits

RNG (the random number generator):

Since Fire Emblem is quite reliant on the RNG for a multitude of things (hits, criticals, enemy stat generation, level-ups, and many other things), it can be quite beneficial to understand how it works, and how to manipulate it.

The first thing to understand is that, in the GBA games, the RNG is entirely predictable. What this means is that, upon resetting the game (as simple as turning it off and on again), the random numbers are pre-determined, and as a result, if you do certain inputs, no matter how many times you reset, the game will always use the same random numbers (which I tend to call "burning" random numbers), and any RNG-based events will consistently occur.

In the case of the GBA games, when the game is reset, the random numbers (which can range from 0 to 100) will always start with these initial values, and the rest of the numbers are also already determined. Utilizing a lua script allows you to see the random numbers at any given time, but my previous iterations of this playthrough were actually done without one. Regardless, it's a nice tool to have if you plan on doing a run like this.

It also helps to understand how many RNs (random numbers) are burned for any given action in the game. Here are the most prominent actions in the game and how many RNs they burn:

Spoiler

Missing an attack: 2 RNs (The game averages out the two numbers and compares that average to the user's hit rate. If the average is greater or equal to the hit rate, the attack will miss, and no further RNs are burned for that attack)

Hitting an attack: 3 RNs (If the average is less than the hit rate, the attack connects, and an additional RN is burned to determine if the attack is a critical hit. This results in the actual chance of hitting being different from the hit rate, often referred to as the True Hit system. Feel free to read more about it here: https://serenesforest.net/general/true-hit/)

Critting an attack: 4 RNs (One of FE8's RNG oddities. Normally, once the crit check is done, no more RNs are burned, no matter if the attacker actually critted or not. However, in FE8, if the attacker crits, a 4th RN is burned to determine whether that attack is a Silencer strike. Even though this RN only ever affects Assassins, it still gets burned no matter the class)

It should be noted that skills such as Sure Strike, Pierce, and Great Shield all burn an additional RN to determine if they activate.

Leveling Up normally: 7 RNs (Seven numbers are typically burned, corresponding to the seven stats which can increase, and these numbers are compared to the unit's growth rates to determine which stats actually increase)

Leveling Up in 0% growths: 21 RNs (In general, if the initial seven numbers don't produce any stat-ups, the game burns additional rounds of seven numbers in an attempt to get the unit an actual level up. If three rounds of seven RNs fail to produce any stats, the game will give up and hand that unit an empty level up. Since this is 0% growths, these 21 RNs will always be burned whenever a unit levels up)

Attempting to hit a Status Staff: 1 RN (unlike normal attacks, the game only burns 1 RN to see if a status staff hits, meaning the True Hit system does not apply to status staves)

Attempting to find an item in the desert: 1 RN (unlike the other GBA games which rely on a secondary RNG to determine this, FE8 just uses the regular random number chain to see if a desert item is found)

Indeed, all this information is cool stuff, but it's manipulating the RNG that helps accomplish the events that need to happen. So how do we do that?

One method of manipulating the RNG is by playing part of a chapter, suspending out of the chapter, and restarting the chapter (without resetting the game). When you re-enter the chapter, the chain of RNs will remain, but you will be at the start of the chapter as opposed to wherever you left it. This method is primarily helpful for trying to rig enemy stats, but I'm not a big fan of deliberately changing enemy stats to be lower than normal, which is why I make it a point to reset before every chapter.

The method I typically use for manipulating RNG is what I like to call arrow dancing. Essentially, when you select a character to move, you get an arrow which you use to point them to where they will go on that turn. However, simply wiggling around with this movement arrow can often advance the RNG, even if you're not intentionally trying to. I typically move the arrow on the edge of a unit's movement range, since that tends to give the most control in terms of how many RNs I want to burn.

(An example. Vanessa moves the arrow all the way to the right, then one down, followed by one left. The game has to burn an RN to determine what the arrow's path is, and as you can see, the random numbers get changed as a result. It should be noted that if I move one left, then one down instead, I would be the one directly determining the arrow's path, not the game, which means no RNs would be burned)

So, whenever you see me moving to the edge of a unit's movement range and doing some nonsensical cursor movement back and forth, chances are that I'm burning some RNs to accomplish a certain task.

Reliability of strategies

I feel that this is important enough to reiterate. As a general rule, the less turns one has available to pull a strategy off, the less reliable that strategy is. This forces one to question if they're willing to sacrifice reliability for the sake of turncount, and if so, to what extent. For me, I almost always choose the turncount over the reliability (this is an LTC playthrough after all), but I still attempt to have a strategy be as reliable as possible given the turncount. For the most part, I do think this playthrough is relatively reliable (not that 0% growth LTC playthroughs can be too reliable...), but there will be a fair share of timely criticals, chances of death, and other such stuff. I will be noting these in the form of annotations in the description.

-----

I believe I've explained everything else sufficiently in the video, so make sure to watch that. Otherwise, I hope you guys stick around! This has been my passion project for more than a year at this point, so I can only hope that my efforts will finally come to fruition. I'm not very familiar to this whole video making process (processing, uploading, commentary, etc.), so any advice is appreciated. Thank you all for your time, and I hope you have a blessed day.

]]>84157Fri, 13 Jul 2018 21:49:05 +0000Who's Lyon's Successor?https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/84486-whos-lyons-successor/
I think, this has never been answered in-game, but who rules over Grado after it's royal family died. Has it been too hurt by the earthquake and the war to even be it's own kingdom and got annexed to Renais? Has Ephraim or Eirika become King/Queen of Grado? Has Duessel taken over as Ruler and made Amelia his Heir? What do you think, is the most likely?
]]>84486Wed, 08 Aug 2018 15:58:38 +0000Why is Amelia disliked?https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/83226-why-is-amelia-disliked/
I've seen many comments bashing Amelia as being one of the worst SS characters out there, and I'm just wondering why. It is because she really has bad base and growths? it is because of how late she joins as a trainee? or is something else? I'm wondering, because she's one of my favorite FE characters ever, and I've always understood she has no problem becoming a powerful unit
]]>83226Mon, 30 Apr 2018 05:14:48 +0000Eirika and Ephraim might have actually gotten marriedhttps://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/84467-eirika-and-ephraim-might-have-actually-gotten-married/
Okay so in Seth's ending it says that he served both the new king and queen. When one sibling takes the throne, the other does not take the title of queen/king. They remain a prince/princess. However, Eirika is being referred to as the queen of Renais. This implies that she married Ephraim. You could argue that Ephraim married someone in the game, but let's assume for this example that neither have been paired off. The message is the same regardless if they have an A rank or not.

By the wording, it also seems to say that Seth served them at the same time, implying that Ephraim didn't become king before Eirika and then died so she became queen. It implies that Ephraim and Eirika were king and queen together. Now it's probably just a poor choice of wording on Treehouse's side, but still. Out of all the games to choose poor wording for that. Tana was also never stated to be queen of Frelia, as her brother is king. While it's slightly different because Innes and Tana are not twins, Ephraim is the older of the two, and rightful heir to the throne. Eirika should only be a princess, so why is she stated as queen? There's no reason to give her that title, unless she marries Ephraim or Ephraim dies. However, the game ends if Ephraim dies, so that's out.

Again, it's probably just bad wording. I just found it interesting upon reading some of the Sacred Stones endings.

]]>84467Mon, 06 Aug 2018 05:30:19 +0000What do you like about Sacred Stones?https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/57379-what-do-you-like-about-sacred-stones/Inspired somewhat by the thread in the general Fire Emblem forum, I ask this question because I've never been able to complete a playthrough of FE8. I've always found myself bored with the storyline, gameplay mechanics, etc. to finish the game.

In the hopes of doing so in the future, I would like to ask you guys to share things you love about the game that will hopefully allow me to change my views!

]]>57379Thu, 10 Sep 2015 08:20:12 +0000Why Vanessa? Why?https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/84376-why-vanessa-why/
I first played Sacred Stones last summer, and it was my first time playing a Fire Emblem game on a mode other than Casual. I was told by quite a few people that this was a good choice of game for beginners, as this game was quite easy and somewhat similar to Awakening. Well, if only it was as easy as they said it was, the game actually felt pretty hard. I started playing Blazing Blade a few weeks ago, and frankly I was surprised at how easy the game felt compared to Sacred Stones. For reference, I played both game on Normal, so it's not as if I stepped down in difficulty from FE8 to FE7. I then noticed that, my Pegasus Knights in FE7, were actually killing things early on in the game, something that just didn't happen for me when I played FE8. This then prompted me to go and check my FE8 save file, and this is what I found:

Spoiler

My Vanessa only has 9 Strength as a Level 2 Falcoknight!!! Now at the time, I never bothered to look up what her growths and bases were, and I never really realized exactly how bad I was getting screwed over, so I just assumed that she was a really bad character. Well, after seeing only 9 Str, and comparing that to my current Florina in FE7 who has 17 Str, I knew something was up. So I decided to check on Vanessa's growths and bases. She has a strength base of 7, and a Strength Growth of 35%, meaning on an average playthrough, at this level, she should have 14-15 Strength. This prompted me to calculate exactly how unlikely it was for me to experience this bad of a strength growth. Well, here's what I got:

(0.35^2)*(0.65^19)*210 = 0.00717 = 0.717%

A 0.717% chance of getting a strength growth this bad.

Now, I recognize that we all experience bad luck, and this is really nothing in the grand scheme of all games of Sacred Stones that have ever been played, but I just thought it was rather interesting. After seeing this, and realizing that this might be why I was struggling so much in my playthrough of Sacred Stones, I think I will replay through the game again after I finish FE7. I did enjoy the game the first time, and I love many of the characters, but I hope that next time around, I won't get this bad of luck.

]]>84376Sat, 28 Jul 2018 01:55:19 +0000Vote for Neimi!https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/83504-vote-for-neimi/
As you might have guessed from my avatar, Neimi from this game is my favorite FE character. This guy on YouTube , Mangs, makes character spotlights on different characters that appear in the series. When a specific character is asked for in the comments section of his videos, he does it on them. So yes, please ask for Neimi for his next spotlight :)

]]>83504Sun, 27 May 2018 00:48:14 +0000Rate This Voice Cast for Possible Remakehttps://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/83892-rate-this-voice-cast-for-possible-remake/
If the game gets a remake sometime in the future, here I have a few ideas for some VA's, give ideas if any of them don't match:

Eirika: Kira Buckland

Seth: Chris Smith

Franz: Bryce Papenbrook

Gilliam: Kent Williams

Vanessa: Michelle Ruff

Moulder: DC Douglas

Ross: Nicholas Roye

Garcia: Richard Epcar

Neimi: Cherami Leigh

Colm: Michael Sinterniklaas

Artur: Joe Zieja

Lute: Brina Palencia

Natasha: Nicole Balick

Joshua: Todd Haberkorn

Ephraim: Greg Chun

Forde: Grant George

Kyle: Xander Mobus

Orson: Marc Diraison

Tana: Melissa Fahn

Amelia: Natalie Lander

Innes: Xander Mobus

Gerik: Keith Silverstein

Tethys: Eden Riegel

Marisa: Connor Kelley

L'Arachel: Carrie Keranen

Dozla: Kyle Herbert

Saleh: Patrick Seitz

Ewan: Ray Chase

Cormag: Travis Willingham

Rennac: Doug Erholtz

Duessel: Doug Stone

Knoll: Taliesin Jaffe

Myrrh: Erica Lindbeck

Syrene: Caitlin Glass

Valter: Imari Williams

Riev: Mike Pollock

Selena: Colleen Clinkenbeard

Caellach: Sean Schemmel

Lyon: Mark P Whitten

Vigarde: Robert Clotworthy

]]>83892Sat, 23 Jun 2018 22:49:59 +0000Question about Joshua and Marisahttps://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/84247-question-about-joshua-and-marisa/
Who ends up with better skill and speed? One thing I like about the series is that the characters match their stats. Even though they both probably started training at a young age, I would think Marisa has the advantage since she’s been training so young and is even ambidextrous. However, because he’s a man anyway, it makes sense that he’s stronger.
]]>84247Thu, 19 Jul 2018 19:37:56 +0000100% RNG Playthroughhttps://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/41433-100-rng-playthrough/Hey guys! I've been a longtime lurker on this forum and enjoy doing efficiency playthroughs. That being said, I'm currently planning a playthrough of Fire Emblem Sacred Stones using a code to make it so the RNG is always 0. That means that any event with a nonzero chance of occurring will always occur. This means that hit rates, criticals, and growth rates are always 100%! This code works for all three GBA games.

So this may make the game seem trivialized, and in some sense, it does. Early game is a lot easier now because your units are doing three times the damage. Franz gets extremely broken due to his D lances and high move and fast growth, easily outstatting Seth after 5-6 levels. Seth is still necessary for low turning much of early game, as he is the only character that can reliably have a crit chance on every character. Vanessa's shoddy offense gets slightly boosted, allowing her to become a flying tank if fed kills.

However, this also complicates things. Characters whose durability relied on them being dodgetanks are no longer reliable, meaning Joshua is much more difficult to use now.

Additionally, the skill system in this game is the reason why a playthrough in Sacred Stones is much more interesting. While it seems like this makes your units seem more broken (100% Lethality and Great Shield procs), this makes certain parts of the game a lot more difficult.

This means that clearing Chapter 8 is impossible as the boss Tirado is immovable unless a Sniper or Assassins kills him. There are no Assassins that early in the game; the only potential Sniper available at that point is... Neimi.

Yup, Neimi, a character that lives at the basement of most tier lists, is necessary in order to advance in the game. You have to baby the hell out of her to get her to 10/1 if you hope to ever get past chapter 8!

In my test runs, I'm having a hell of a hard time getting her to level 10 to use the Orion's Bolt. A lot of the standard low turn records are not met due to having to feed her kills. I think getting her to level 9 by chapter 8 and promoting in chapter is the only way to efficiently do it.

Tirado has 15 Def (because enemy growths are 100% too!) and 3 Def boost from the throne meaning that he has an effective 18 Def with 42 HP. He also has 6 speed, perfect for doubling.

Neimi at level 10 assuming perfect growths has 13 Str before promotion. The promotion bonus gives her +3 Str, and equipped with an Iron Bow gives her 22 Atk, with a good chance of critting, meaning she'll do 24 damage to him per round, enough to kill him in two turns (he has a Javelin).

Well, hopefully this allows for some discussion! If anyone's interested, I got the code from a forum search, but here it is.

83000000 000083000002 000083000004 0000

]]>41433Sat, 06 Jul 2013 11:45:30 +0000Who to use the Hero Crest on?https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/84238-who-to-use-the-hero-crest-on/
I'm considering who to promote and I can't decide, whether I should make Gerik a hero first, Joshua a swordmaster or Marisa a swordmaster/assasin (?)

]]>84238Thu, 19 Jul 2018 09:29:51 +0000Missing Nightmare Moduleshttps://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/84200-missing-nightmare-modules/
So I've been scratching my head for years about this. Every now and again I like to pull up my old Sacred Stones rom and tweak the character classes to re-run the game. I use'd to be able to change the palettes to match the classes on my old computer, but that tanked and I had no backups. I've got most of what I need, but all the download links to the two modules I still need have long since been dead. If anyone happens to have a save of the Palette Association Editors made by Zeld and Zephyr,I'd appreciate it.
]]>84200Mon, 16 Jul 2018 01:03:19 +0000What are some non-meta promotions for this game?https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/83898-what-are-some-non-meta-promotions-for-this-game/
Like making Ross anything but a Berserker, making Moulder a sage, etc? I'm thinking about doing a challenge playthrough.
]]>83898Sun, 24 Jun 2018 16:10:09 +0000I want a Remake and a new Story for Sacred Stones.https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/75511-i-want-a-remake-and-a-new-story-for-sacred-stones/
Seriously, the game was far too easy, and there are unanswered questions in the game, I think this game needs a remake, and a new story added into it.
]]>75511Sat, 16 Sep 2017 05:06:09 +0000Trainee Units.https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/79019-trainee-units/
So I was thinking, the trainee units are great and all, but what do you suggest on them.
]]>79019Sun, 05 Nov 2017 05:25:15 +0000One of the greatest Fire Emblem mysteries...https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/82958-one-of-the-greatest-fire-emblem-mysteries/
It's been 12 years, 10 months, and 11 days since the US release of Sacred Stones, and I still can't find the answer online.
So please tell me, does ANYBODY know what kind of hat Joshua wears? Like, seriously. It's a nice hat, and I need to know what kind it is for cosplay reasons.
]]>82958Tue, 03 Apr 2018 05:44:22 +0000Why does Ewan have higher Con than Lute?https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/83115-why-does-ewan-have-higher-con-than-lute/
Lute is a young woman who if I had to guess is like 17-20, meanwhile I still question myself as to wether or not Ewan has even hit puberty yet and he's not muscular or large at all, certainly smaller than Lute, how does he have a higher con stat than Lute??
]]>83115Tue, 17 Apr 2018 20:35:40 +0000How the heck do you pronounce l'arachel's name?https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/83108-how-the-heck-do-you-pronounce-larachels-name/
I have no idea how to pronounce this name and it is bothering me so much.

I couldn't decide if this was good for FE8 section since it's about a FE8 character or FFTF due to how trivial this is so mods act accordingly.

]]>83108Tue, 17 Apr 2018 01:26:42 +0000Fire Emblem 8 Patch helphttps://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/83515-fire-emblem-8-patch-help/
Um so I’m looking for a couple of patches if someone could be a pal that’d be great

Patches-

1: One That lets Paladins use axes

2: This one may be a little harder to find. A patch that lets thieves steals weapons. Like in path of radiance and radiant dawn

]]>83515Sun, 27 May 2018 19:14:49 +0000Your preferences for paired/solo endingshttps://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/83434-your-preferences-for-pairedsolo-endings/
One thing I like about SS is that every ending is different and unique (the endings of FE7 were just copy/paste jobs). Here’s my preferences for the different endings:

Eirika x Seth

Ephraim x L’Arachel

Colm x Neimi

Innes x Vanessa

Artur x Lute

Ross x Garcia

Joshua x Natasha

Cormag x Tana

Gerik x Marissa

Saleh x Myrrh

Kyle x Syrene

Amelia x Duessel

Everyone else is a solo ending. Thoughts?

]]>83434Sun, 20 May 2018 12:05:36 +0000Should I use Seth...?https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/71657-should-i-use-seth/
I sort of have a stigma against using pre-promotes since I'm one of those 'promote at 20' kinds of people.

Late-game, how would Seth hold up compared to a trained Forde in this method?

]]>71657Sat, 13 May 2017 19:28:11 +0000How does Ewan fair?https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/72402-how-does-ewan-fair/
I read that he is one of the very few dark magic users you can get, and I just got access to the Luna tome, which is very tempting. I have also heard that he is the hardest to train/least used. Is he honestly worth spending time training, or should I just wait for the other dark magic user in the game?
]]>72402Thu, 15 Jun 2017 01:12:26 +0000Sacred Stones Pick My Edits - Saber Stylehttps://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/70552-sacred-stones-pick-my-edits-saber-style/
Hey there. New to this forum, but not the Fire Emblem community. I have been lurking in the shadows and now I am back to enjoy the lovely land of rom hacking. But, I am taking a break from learning the ropes to indulge myself in a nice PME run. Here are the rules:

NOTHING from the PME of more well known FE community members/Youtubers. (IE: Lords always being dancers from Mangs or anything Amelia-is-bad Meme that also is a Mangs thing. Not that I am some whiny Amelia fanboy. I want to use every character at least twice in the run, and I want it to pertain to me. Not riding on the coat tails of someone more well known. That would be a huge disservice to Mangs and how awesome he is.)

I would like to have promotions be a singular branch. I feel it would be more challenging and also ... the multi promotion shit was always useless in FE 8 due to how one class was always overshadowed by a better class.

As an avid lover of the Halberdier class in FE 9&10 I would love to have at least one soldier.

Maaaaaagic is liiiiife. (Jesus that was cringey)

Previous characters from other FE games or Characters from future games are allowed.

I will allow one original character in the game as long as it isn't to ... Mary-Sue-like.

Have at it, boys!

]]>70552Tue, 28 Mar 2017 04:16:28 +0000Why is Marissa called “The Crimson Flash”?https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/83279-why-is-marissa-called-%E2%80%9Cthe-crimson-flash%E2%80%9D/
Why is Marissa called “The Crimson Flash”? The only explanation I can come up with is that in the heat of a battle, she gets covered in blood; but despite this, she will continue to run around quickly. Was this addressed in the Japanese version?

]]>83279Sun, 06 May 2018 14:13:53 +0000Ooooooh... swordplay :)https://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?/topic/83269-ooooooh-swordplay/
In this hilarious series of vids, two guys play through this game on emulator. I didn’t realize until watching these videos how almost every line of dialogue could be turned into a sex joke (oooooh.. swordplay). Even though one of the guys is experienced in this game, and the fact that they’re playing on Normal, they still make a shitload of mistakes. In fact, I got a little frustrated with some of the strategies they used. Enjoy :)